This thesis discusses the effect that the use of more than one genre in a medieval narrative has upon the way we read the character of the main protagonist. Where most medieval writing aligns protagonist and narrative with a single genre, the main texts in this thesis confuse the reader's sense of such an alignment and the resulting generic interaction has the effect of separating the protagonist from the narrative, an effect I have called 'alienation'. This terminology relates to the Augustinian metaphor for the experience of the righteous in a fallen world. It is an image which describes a conflict of semiologies: individuals who operate according to one set of terms in a context which operates according to a different set of terms. The thesis examines the idea that the gaps in the narrative that are created by the alienation of the protagonist - the reader's sense of the protagonist having a meaning which does not work smoothly within his/her narrative context - allow for an interpretation of the character of the protagonist which is more sympathetic to a post- Romantic concept of individuality than is usual in medieval characterisation. Chapter One defines 'genre' and 'alienation' in relation to their application in the thesis, and discusses medieval ideas of individuality and the framework of language available to medieval writers for describing the individual. Two texts are used to illust~ate some of the points made in this discussion: the Confessions of Saint Augustine, and William Langland's ?iers Plowman. The following five chapters each give a reading of one of the main texts. Chapter Two shows how the romance characterisation of Sir Gawain, in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, is undermined by penitential and fabliau elements, Chapter Three, how Sir Lancelot in Malory's ~ale of the Sankgreal, is juxtaposed with a hagiographical narrative and an alternative hero, Sir Galahad. In Chapters Four and Five Criseyde, in Chaucer's ~roilus an~_~iseyd~, and his Canon's Yeoman, in the Canon's Yeoman's Tale, are both generically alienated as a mimesis of their---- thematic alienation as traitor and as alchemist. And Chapter Six establishes a working definition of Complaint and shows how Hoccleve, in his Complaint, uses and then transcends the genre's characteristic representation of righteous alienation to demonstrate his recovery from madness. Finally, Chapter Seven looks beyond Middle English to Marlowe's Doctor Faustus and the representation of character in the Renaissance.

Masters of Art / This study is based on the comparison of six Xhosa radio dramas spanning the period 1987 and 1988. The main objective is to investigate the strengths and weaknesses which manifest themselves in the dramas. The dramas are compared with respect to the six structural elements of drama viz., theme, plot, characterization, time and space, and the techniques of production. Themes are studied to establish whether there have been any development~ as far as the choice of themes is concerned in Xhosa radio dramas or whether there has been stagnation. Also given is a brief literary history of the themes broadcast in the Xhosa radio. The analysis of the plot structure is also done to identify the areas where they met the requirements successfully as well as where they failed to. The dramas are analysed according to the traditional approach ie. the exposition, complication, climax and the denouement With regard to characterization, the characters are classified according to the function they perform viz., the protagonist, antagonist, tritagonist and confidante. They are also analysed according to their individual nature ie. whether they are static or dynamic, mono- or multidimensional etc. Techniques that the playwrights have used in the portrayal of their characters are also examined. Toe aspects of time and space are also discussed, to investigate the artistic skills of the different dramatists in handling the time and space relations. Time is viewed with respect to the following: order, duration, frequency, tempo and the presentation of the time structures. Space is discussed with respect to the following: type, function, and the techniques of localisation. A critical comparison of the production techniques used by these different playwrights is explored, the focus being on the microphone, sound effects and music. The examination conducted in the study basically revealed that there is little development in Xhosa radio dramas. The themes that are broadcast are mainly for entertainment and consequently have little intellectual depth. There is also a lack of innovation which is shown by the repetition of the same themes.

<p>This study examines L.P. Hartley's male protagonists who provide the focus for his major fiction. The male characters' difficulties in understanding themselves, and the world which confronts them, are issues discussed by the few serious critics of Hartley's work. The book-length criticism, however, has tended to rely heavily upon figures like Freud and Jung, and upon Romantic and Judaeo-Christian thinking and symbolism, in order to establish its views. My study constitutes an attempt to avoid the overt application of "schools" to Hartley's work, although like Hartley himself I cannot claim to have been completely untainted, for example, by our Freudian climate. Specifically, I am interested in demonstrating the complex processes by which Hartley's sensitive male protagonists near self-understanding, and how Hartley uses detailed, even intricate, symbolism to express those developments.</p> <p>Using the Eustace and Hilda trilogy, I thoroughly examine Eustace Cherrington's growth toward self-understanding in order to demonstrate the special problems confronted by a typical Hartleian male. Leo Colston, in The Go-Between, and Stephen Leadbitter, in The Hireling, are then included in the discussion, and the three males' associations with fantasy worlds, and with manipulative women, are seen to contribute to the difficulties faced by these protagonists. In a final chapter, by examining the earlier fiction in the light of some of Hartley's less symbolic later novels, in particular The Harness Room, I indicate how Hartley's symbolism has been used, in the past, to conceal his interest in male homosexual relationships.</p> <p>Hartley, in addressing the issue of self-knowledge in his fiction, also makes a statement concerning the difficulty faced by the individual who, after the Second World War, was especially confronted with the task of securing an identity for himself in an increasingly egalitarian, fast-paced "modern" world. Hartley's canon is a metaphoric expression of how what Hartley terms the "Great Man" of Victorian fiction becomes the weak, victimised, but in many ways "greater" twentieth century man; for all his insecurity and failure, the Hartleian male of the 1970's is one who has painfully explored both himself and his environment in an attempt to survive, and to establish for himself, however temporarily, a "unique personality" appropriate to his time.</p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

The purpose of this paper is to examine how female protagonists in video games are portrayed. The material analysed consist of two game series of ten games each, which means a total empirical material of 20 games. The game series chosen for analysis are Metroid with its protagonist Samus Aran and Tomb Raider with Lara Croft as its protagonist. These game franchises were chosen because they have the bestselling video game heroines. The method used for this study has been a critical discourse analysis and the results show both a validated and contradicted result. The theories and the result from the analysis can confirm that female video game characters and especially protagonists are visually portrayed in an objectified sexualised manner. The contradiction is shown in the descriptions of the two female leads where they are both depicted as strong, confident and independent women in their fields of expertise.

Petrusová, Kateřina (2011): The Characters of Children at the Work of Adalbert Stifter. Prague: Institute of Germanic Studies, Faculty of Arts of Charles University in Prague. This thesis deals with the role of children at the work of Adalbert Stifter, an Austrian author of the first half of the 19th century, born in Horni Plana (Oberplan) in Southern Bohemia. Adalbert Stifter was not just a writer and a painter but also a pedagogue (he worked as a supervisor of elementary schools for Upper Austria). All these activities, in association with his life experience and personal problems, were reflected in his literary work. I mainly focus on his three works: collections Studies (Studien), Colored Stones (Bunte Steine) and the novel (Bildungsroman) Indian Summer (Der Nachsommer). Childhood already appears in his early work, considered as a period of human development (Menschenwerdung). In Stifter's later stories, for example in his collection Bunte Steine, the characters of children are at the forefront: they are always confronted with the adult world and especially with the powerful laws of nature. This relationship is formulated in the foreword to this collection in the form of Stifter's gentle law (das sanfte Gesetz). The whole concept of the child is completed in the novel Der Nachsommer, where a...

Masters of Art / This M.A. mini-thesis seeks to open up the post-apartheid South African biopic as a topic for serious historical scrutiny. While book-length written biographies published in the post-apartheid (and apartheid periods) are the subjects of a now quite extensive historiographical literature, biography on film – including in the form of filmic dramas – has been hitherto entirely ignored. Social history or marginalised lives and not political lives of struggle against apartheid have been the predominant subgenre within this emerging field: with sixteen biopics having been produced in the 2010s. But the field is dominated by white men. This thesis showcases the story-telling gifts of one young coloured film-maker through a meticulously detailed analysis of “visual story-telling” and “visual language” used in his two award-winning gang biopics, Noem My Skollie (2016) and Ellen. Die Stories van Ellen Pakkies (2018). Read in the context of the extended processes of production of these two films in which the central protagonists played a shaping background role, the thesis explores and compares the linear chronological, four-chapter, narrative structure of Noem My Skollie with the architecture of “the parallel narrative” used in the deeply disturbing Ellen. Die Storie van Ellen Pakkies (2018) The thesis is a celebration of the film-making talent of Daryne Joshua.

The major proposition is that the childhood point of view in two Delibes novels--El camino (1950) and Las ratas (1962)--aids the reader's comprehension of the basic values held by rural Spaniards. These values are stressed in both novels, giving the reader an insight into the nature of these simplistic people. Honest, accepting attitudes of the child protagonists aid the reader's understanding of the plight of the villagers.The superiority of the natural way of life is revealed in both novels. Nature became even more important to Delibes as his stature as novelist increased, The later work, therefore, is a social protest against effects of industrial progress on rural Castilians.

The purpose of this study was to investigate if there is a difference in the way male and female authors of contemporary realistic fiction for young adults portray decision making by their male or female protagonists. Questions asked in the study were: (1) Do female writers of contemporary young adult realistic fiction employ an ethic of justice or an ethic of care for male protagonists involved in moral decision making? (2) Do female writers of contemporary young adult realistic fiction employ an ethic of justice or an ethic of care for female protagonists involved in moral decision making? (3) Do male writers of contemporary young adult realistic fiction employ an ethic of justice or an ethic of care for male protagonists involved in moral decision making? and (4) Do male writers of contemporary young adult realistic fiction employ an ethic of justice or an ethic of care for female protagonists involved in moral decision making? Content analysis was used as the method of collecting data. The sample consisted of 194 novels written from 1989 to 1998, 53 of which contained a moral dilemma. A discussion of the novels included examples of moral dilemmas, alternative solutions, dilemma resolutions, and resolutions based upon care or justice. Analysis of the data revealed: (1) Female writers employ an ethic of care and an ethic of justice for male protagonists involved in moral decision making. (2) Female writers prefer an ethic of care for female protagonists involved in moral decision making. (3) Male writers prefer an ethic of justice for male protagonists involved in moral decision making. (4) Male writers prefer an ethic of justice for female protagonists involved in moral decision making.

This study presents an alternative approach to the novels of Franz Kafka through demonstrating that the Kafkan protagonist may be conceptualized in terms of mythic archetypes: the knight errant and the pharmakos. These complementary yet contending personalities animate the Kafkan victim-hero and account for his paradoxical nature. The widely varying fates of Karl Rossmann, Joseph K., and K. are foreshadowed and partially explained by their simultaneous kinship and uniqueness. The Kafka protagonist, like the hero of quest-romance, is engaged in a quest which symbolizes man's yearning to transcend sterile human existence.

The thesis is mainly concerned with popular dystopian book series Hunger Games and Divergent. The aim of the present diploma thesis is to summarize representative characteristics of a young adult dystopian novels featuring rebellious female heroes and to closely examine the social context of the aforementioned novels. The first part of the thesis is based on the analysis of young adult dystopian novels and the attitude of young female readers to the representation of strong female protagonists in literature. The second part od this thesis presents a qualitative research realized by interviews with young female readers and it attempts to answer the research questions about the attitude of readers to examined dystopian novels and the contemporary social role of women. Keywords: dystopian novel, Hunger Games, Divergent, female protagonists, gender